Politics
Chicago Paid $62.5M to Family of Girl Killed During 2020 Chicago Police Chase: Records
Chicago Police Department headquarters. (Michael Izquierdo/WTTW News)
The family of a 10-year-old girl who was killed after a 2020 police chase received $62.5 million from the city, the latest massive payment prompted by a Chicago police pursuit that violated department policy, records obtained by WTTW News show.
A Cook County jury ordered the city to pay $79.85 million in December to the family of Da’Karia Spicer, who was killed in the crash that occurred on Sept. 2, 2020, near 80th and Halsted streets. Her father and 5-year-old brother were also seriously injured.
City lawyers appealed that verdict, one of the largest in Chicago history, and reached an agreement to resolve the lawsuit by paying a total of $62.5 million, with $20 million coming directly from Chicago taxpayers and the city’s insurance company paying $42.5 million, said Kristen Cabanban, a spokesperson for the Department of Law.
“This will leave a legacy for Da’Karia with her family and honor her memory,” said Patrick Salvi II, of the law firm of Salvi, Schostok & Pritchard, which represented the Spicer family. “She was just a superstar.”
The massive verdict and ultimate payment would serve as a measure of “accountability” for everyone involved, Salvi said.
“The magnitude of the loss is just incalculable,“ Salvi said.
Just five months into the year, Chicago taxpayers have spent at least $165 million to resolve more than two and a half dozen lawsuits, exceeding its budget to resolve lawsuits alleging police misconduct by more than 100%, city records show.
In all, Chicago taxpayers spent more than $120.3 million since January 2019 to resolve 31 lawsuits filed by Chicagoans injured during police pursuits, according to an analysis of city data by WTTW News.
Taxpayers have paid $20 million or more four times since March 2024 to resolve individual lawsuits sparked by police pursuits that resulted in a grave injury or death.
A 15-year-old boy who was gravely injured in 2021 when a Chicago police officer launched an unauthorized pursuit. Nathen Jones needs around-the-clock care and is unable to walk, speak or feed himself as a result of the crash. In addition to the $20 million from taxpayers, the city’s insurance company paid Jones $25 million.
In February, taxpayers paid $27 million to Angela Parks, the mother of five children, who suffered a broken neck and severed spinal column on Aug. 9, 2020, after being struck by an SUV fleeing Chicago police. The city’s insurance company covered $7 million of the settlement.
In April, taxpayers paid $32 million to Bryce Summary, a St. Louis man who was struck by a driver being chased by Chicago police and lost both legs. The city’s insurance company covered $12 million of the settlement.
The Spicer family was on their way to the fifth grader’s school to pick up a computer so she could participate in remote learning during the COVID-19 pandemic when Chicago Police officers attempted to pull over a Mercedes-Benz after they observed the vehicle using an alley as a thru street.
The driver refused to stop, and the officers pursed the car into the intersection of 80th and Halsted, where both vehicles ran a stop sign, according to the lawsuit filed by the Spicer family.
The Mercedes struck a car, and both vehicles collided with the Spicers’ Honda.
Da’Karia was killed just weeks after the Chicago Police Department changed its policy for vehicle pursuits. That policy requires officers to “consider the need for immediate apprehension of an eluding suspect and the requirement to protect the public from the danger created by eluding offenders” and ensures that no officer could be disciplined for terminating a pursuit.
Marked police cars must also take the lead in pursuits, and activate their lights and sirens, according to the revised policy.
Video recorded during the pursuit from inside the police car shows one officer predicting a crash, and that when that collision then happened seconds later, the officer driving the police SUV yelled out “boom.”
Contact Heather Cherone: @HeatherCherone | (773) 569-1863 | [email protected]
